


Revenant

by thedevilchicken



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 01:26:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12048435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Nathan comes back. And comes back. And comes back.





	Revenant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anysin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anysin/gifts).



> Set in an AU after the end of _Heroes_. Peter's career goes in a slightly different direction, and Nathan comes back from the dead.

Peter is older now than Nathan ever was. 

Two months ago, he turned forty-one. There was a party, because everyone expected there to be, even if Peter can't say he felt much like celebrating. He'd've preferred the family's New York townhouse he's been living in - something about his mom thinking he needed space, and money, and a purpose, and at the time he'd been too distracted by Nathan's death to argue - to be empty. He'd've preferred not to have had to smile so hard and shake so many hands, but that's what his life is these days. He's not about to run for office - that was always Nathan's thing, not his - but the Petrelli Foundation does a lot of good work for people like him, and Nathan, and Claire, and all the rest. If pressed, he could probably admit he's proud of that. 

Heidi and the kids stayed for an hour or so, and he was pleased to see them just like he always is, but he always feels a jab of guilt when he sees them, too. They live in a house he gave them and the kids go to schools he pays for and he's never said no, not even once, and only part of that's because Heidi refuses to spoil them both rotten. She seems like a good mother, though Peter's not even sure what a good mother looks like. His and Nathan's was never exactly a shining example of normalcy. Peter's pretty sure she loved them both, but she sometimes had a really weird way of showing it. 

Heidi and the kids came over and Peter was pleasant enough to them all, he thinks, but he feels too guilty to let himself get really close. 

They think the fact Nathan's dead means he's gone for good. He can't find it in himself to tell them they're wrong.

\---

The first time it happened, Nathan had been gone a year and Peter was half asleep. He thought maybe, when he opened his eyes in the middle of the night and saw Nathan standing there across the room, in profile in the moonlight through the curtains he was pretty sure he hadn't left open, he was dreaming it.

Nathan turned his head. He smiled. "Hey, you're awake," he said. "I never know how long this'll last so I guess I thought I'd let you sleep."

"You've been here before?" Peter asked. He pulled himself up and sat back against the headboard, looking at him. In the moonlight, it was really hard to tell if he was real or just his imagination. He didn't turn on the lights.

"You mean since I died?" Nathan said. 

"Something like that, sure."

"A few times. A couple of seconds here, a couple of minutes there. I think I clocked four and a half at that fundraiser you had last month."

"And you didn't say anything?"

"I've been trying to decide if it's real." He turned the rest of his body away from the window, toward him. He was wearing a suit, it turned out, like that should've been a surprise. "I've been trying to decide if _you're_ real." 

"Weird, I'm wondering the same thing about you right now."

"Pete, I--"

And, in a literal blink of Peter's eyes, he was gone again. He guessed that answered the question of reality. 

\---

The second time it happened, Peter was standing at the dresser, putting in his cufflinks. They were a pair of Nathan's Heidi had given him after the funeral, and one second he was dropping one on the floor and stooping to pick it up and the next, there was Nathan in the mirror. There was Nathan standing behind him. 

"Why don't you let me help you with that?" Nathan said, and Peter turned and held the cufflink out to him on the palm of his hand. Nathan took it - Peter's not sure why him doing that was such a shock to him except maybe it was tied up with how easy it would've been to chalk it all up to lingering grief if he hadn't felt Nathan's fingertips against his skin, like he was really real. At that point, he had to guess either it was really happening or he was seriously unwell. Given everything he'd seen by that point, Peter couldn't rule either option out completely. 

"You disappeared," Peter said. 

Nathan smiled wryly as he popped the cufflink into place. "Yeah, apparently I do that," he said, and he leaned by Peter to grab the tie he'd laid out for himself on the dresser. He wrinkled his nose at it and strode away to Peter's closer and Peter half expected that to be it, he'd be gone again, except he came back twenty seconds later with another tie, a red one, one he hadn't even known he'd owned except it looked like the kind of colorful shit Nathan might've worn. Peter raised his brows. Nathan just smiled at him and stepped in to flip up Peter's shirt collar and he tied it for him, his fingers brushing his neck. It was probably accidental, the way shit like that had always been. 

"Better," Natham said, once he'd stood back to get a better look. "You look..." He gestured at him with both hands, appraising. "You look like you don't hate wearing that."

"Well, Mom said I needed to quit wearing hoodies to the office," Peter replied, then he shook his head. "Look, Nathan, don't think I'm not pleased to see you, but what is this?"

"I really wish I could tell you," Nathan replied. 

"So you can't or you won't?"

"I can't because I don't know. I wish to God I did."

"Where do you go?"

Nathan sighed and gave an exaggerated shrug. "I don't know that, either," he said. "When I'm here, I know time's passed, but I don't know where I've been. I don't even know _if_ I've been." 

"But you're here now."

Nathan nodded. He stepped forward and he took him by his upper arms, his hands warm even through his shirtsleeves. "I'm here now," he said. And it really felt like he was, ten times more than the first time, twenty times more. When Peter stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Nathan's waist and buried his face in the crook of Nathan's neck, if felt like he was real. He smelled like cologne and hair product and and toothpaste and coffee like he always did. He was the right size and the right shape and Peter closed his eyes and held on tight. Nathan's hands pressed warm and solid to the small of his back, to the back of his neck, and he could hear him breathe, he could _feel_ him breathe, the rise and fall of his chest against his like he was really there. 

But then he was gone again. He winked out of existence and Peter threw up on his knees in the bathroom because Jesus, it felt a whole lot more like losing him all over again, not like getting him back. 

And all Peter could do then was put on his jacket and go to work. 

\---

The third time, it was just past 3am and Peter couldn't sleep. He had his face pressed into the pillow like suffocation was the next best thing, then the sheet rustled and the mattress shifted and Peter jerked around to see. It was Nathan. He'd just gotten into bed with him still fully dressed, in suit and tie and wingtips. 

"Looks like coming back from the dead hasn't made you any less crazy," Peter pointed out, smiling faintly, and Nathan tapped his shin with the toe of one shoe in retaliation. 

"Looks like me coming back from the dead hasn't made you any less of a smartass," he replied. "What did I do to deserve a kid brother like you?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was just dumb luck," Peter said, and Nathan snorted, amused. Then he reached over and brushed some stray hair back from Peter's forehead. 

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right," he said, then his smile sort of faded out. "Hey, Pete, have you talked to Heidi?" he asked. 

"About you?"

"Yeah, about me."

"No." Peter smiled, sort of, just a weird, awkward twist of his lips. "I've been trying to figure out if I'm losing my goddamn mind before I talk to anyone about you." 

"Well, when you figure out you're not, don't tell her."

Peter looked at him. He frowned at him, and maybe he was about to ask why Nathan didn't want his wife to know he'd come back, but then he blinked and the bed was empty again. The comforter drifted down to fill the space, but when Peter reached over and spread his fingers against the mattress, the space where Nathan had been was still warm. 

Peter turned onto his back and he laughed out loud and he rubbed his eyes with the heels of both hands. He got it. Even if it was real, telling Heidi would've just been twisting the knife. 

Maybe Nathan was back, but he was never back for long.

\---

The fourth time, he was only there for twenty seconds while Peter was brushing his teeth before bed. The fifth, it was shorter; he barely got ten words out and a hand on Peter's shoulder before he was gone again. 

After that, Peter decided to hell with it and got every test run that the doctors could think of, letting them think it was something to do with conditions of life insurance or a millionaire's eccentricities or some such happy bullshit, but the results all came back clean. So he found himself a shrink and he talked about how tough it'd been since he'd lost his brother and the changes he'd made and how he thought maybe he was losing it, seeing him like that. The shrink said he was grieving, said it was normal, and prescribed antidepressants Peter wasn't totally sure he needed. They didn't help. 

He saw him again, and again, and again, six times, seven times, ten, until a year had passed and sometimes he was _still_ seeing him, three seconds on the couch in his office at work, five sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter. Sometimes, all Nathan had time to do was say his name and reach out before he was gone, and every time it was like a fucking knife right in his chest. He missed him. He was _right there_ , almost close enough to touch, and then he was gone again. 

His shrink said he needed to move on. She said he needed to live his life and month by month he started to guess maybe she was right. He figured maybe if he moved on, he'd stop seeing his dead brother across the room at charity fundraisers trying to hide his face, or sitting there on the end of his bed in the middle of the night. The problem was, he wasn't sure what moving on would even look like - he thought he _had_ moved on, stopped wallowing in self-pity the way he had after Nathan had died, and gotten his life back on track. Maybe it wasn't the track he'd thought he'd wanted before, but the work he did was good. 

"Peter, when was the last time you dated?" the shrink asked, and he shrugged into the seat back. 

"It's been awhile, I guess," he said. "Are you saying I should?"

"I'm saying being open to the possibility would be a positive step," she said. "Where you go from there is up to you."

She'd said a lot of things like that since he'd started seeing her. Most of the time, she made a lot of sense. 

The seventeenth time he saw Nathan, it was over the shoulder of the guy he'd been making out with just inside the front door. After that, the look on Nathan's face before he turned and headed up the stairs, all Peter could do was apologize to the guy as he ushered him back out, all _it's not you, it's me_ and _I'll call you, okay?_ Then he bolted upstairs after him. Of course, he was already gone. 

He tried again a few nights later, a different guy, one he hadn't tossed out of his house with no real explanation, a flashy lawyer in a flashy suit he met in a flashy bar that wasn't really his style. They'd gotten out of their jackets and ties and shirts there on the living room couch by the time Peter saw Nathan, over by the mantelpiece, just for a second, but all he could do after that was lean back and run his hands through his hair and say _I don't think I'm ready for this_. To his credit, as the guy got dressed and left, he tried to sound like he understood. Honestly, Peter wasn't sure he understood it himself. 

He tried again two weeks after that. It was a friend of a friend of his attorney's sister or something like that, a nice guy, an attractive guy, a senior exec in his family's publishing business. His name was Jack, short for Jonathan, all blond hair and blue eyes, tall but not _too_ tall, built but not _too_ built, forty years old but Peter's taste had always skewed older so that just made sense. 

They had a drink the first night, lunch two days later, dinner the following week, and then Peter took him home because he figured he was a nice guy, an attractive guy, so why not? They kissed. They went upstairs to Peter's room and they undressed and they stretched out on the bed and somehow when the problem struck it wasn't that he saw Nathan see them: it was that he didn't. He had no excuse to stop for, and that was why he had to stop. Jack said he understood and maybe they could try again and take it slow this time, it wasn't like they needed to rush. Peter smiled and said _maybe_ and they had a drink downstairs, making small talk and pretending like they hadn't just completely failed to have sex. 

The morning after, he called his psychiatrist's office and cancelled his weekly appointment; moving on really hadn't gotten him too far, after all. And he's never called Jack since. 

\---

He saw Nathan in blinks of an eye over the months that followed. 

He woke him up one night just long enough to say his name. The next time, he saw him in the park when he was eating lunch alone. The next time, he was on his way to see their mom. The time after that, Nathan only made it halfway across the kitchen to where Peter was draining a pot of pasta that he dropped when he saw him, but they didn't make it anywhere close to each other and afterwards, Peter didn't feel a whole lot like eating anyway. He wasn't sure if he wished Nathan would just stay the fuck away so he wouldn't feel like he was losing his damn mind or if seconds across a room were the only thing that kept him hanging on.

It was sometime in the second year, forty-something appearances in, when what happened happened. He was in the wet room under the shower when the door opened and when he turned, it was Nathan, and he expected him to vanish again back into thin air but he didn't. Nathan strode right up to him, suit and shoes and all, right into the shower like that wasn't so, so dumb. Peter met him. Nathan wrapped his arms around him and Peter did the same and Nathan's suit was getting soaked straight through and he was still wearing the wristwatch their mom had bought him for his thirty-fifth birthday and Peter was _naked_ , but none of that really seemed to matter because Nathan was there. 

"Pete, I--" Nathan said. 

"Jesus Christ, Nathan," Peter said, at the same damn time. And Peter's heart was hammering in his chest and he had shower water in his eyes that he blinked away and they both stopped what they were saying, cut it off short, and looked at each other, hanging on for dear life. Nathan was _there_ , solid and real and soaked to the skin, really _there_ but who even knew how long that would last and Peter could feel himself start to panic. He could feel his fingers pulling tight around fistfuls of the back of Nathan's jacket, holding him against him, and he was pretty sure the look on Nathan's face said he felt the exact same way he did. He missed him. He felt sick with it sometimes, and desperate, and disgustingly fucking needy. Seconds across a room really weren't enough after all.

He doesn't know who started it, and he doesn't know if they really meant to do it because maybe all they meant was for Nathan to rest his forehead down against Peter's and make some kind of wisecrack about how his suit would probably shrink and that would've defused the situation. But Nathan leaned in and Peter leaned up and God, oh _God_ the next thing he knew they were kissing. Nathan's mouth was on his and Jesus, there were ways it could've been chaste, he guesses, but it wasn't. In an instant it was tongues and teeth and Peter's fingers messing up Nathan's perfect hair and Nathan leaning against him, his hands on the wall either side of his shoulders, pressing his back to the tiles. It wasn't chaste. It was the furthest thing from chaste. It was all the things Peter had never let himself contemplate, Nathan's weight against him, Nathan's mouth on him, messy and stupid and enough to make his idiot cock start to stiffen before he could even think it might be a good idea to stop it. And then, just like that, he was gone again. 

Peter yelled out loud. He hit the goddamn wall and he sank down onto the floor and when he wrapped his hand around his cock and squeezed, he didn't have it in him to act like he wasn't thinking about Nathan. He came with a fucking sob and afterwards, icing his knuckles as they swelled from his dumbass display of wall-punching, he wished to God he'd pretended. He'd never let himself think that way about Nathan before. He'd always stopped short. He'd always told himself no. It wasn't like anything good could've come of it. 

He saw him again three weeks later. Three weeks of telling himself he could take it back if he just acted like nothing had happened, but three weeks of jerking off in the shower like it was normal behavior to think about his brother that way and not at least 99% shameful. It was a Monday afternoon and he was sitting on the couch leafing through a trashy music magazine when suddenly he wasn't alone; Nathan was sitting there in front of him on the edge of the coffee table. 

"Hey," Nathan said, apparently cautiously. 

"Hey," Peter replied, sounding pretty much the same. He closed the magazine. He tossed it onto the table right by Nathan's hip. 

"Pete, I think we need to talk before I'm gone again," Nathan said. 

"Well, I've got nothing to say," he replied. 

Nathan leaned forward. He rested his hands on Peter's knees. "You don't--"

The door opened. Sally from the maid service walked in, and stopped, and made a face like she'd just walked in on a blowjob in the Oval Office. 

"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry!" she said, then her brows knit together. She peered at Nathan, and it was way too late to stop her seeing what she'd seen. "Mr. Petrelli?"

"He's a lookalike," Peter said, quickly. 

Sally's frown deepened. "A lookalike?"

"Sure," Nathan said, putting on a voice as unlike his own as he could manage. It sounded kinda weird, but Peter had to hand it to him - he didn't sound all that much like Nathan Petrelli. "He pays me for...certain services." He slid one hand higher up Peter's thigh as Peter raised his brows. 

"Oh," Sally said, then her eyes widened. " _Oh_! I'm really sorry, Mr. Petrelli. I'll come back." And she darted back out of the room. 

"Hey, don't worry about it," Peter called after her. "I guess I forgot it was Monday?" She said something about it being all her fault and closed the door quickly. Peter looked at Nathan, who looked like he was pretty much on the brink of bursting out laughing. 

"You know, she thinks you're a hooker," Peter pointed out.

"Sure," Nathan replied. "But unless you're a fool, she signed a confidentiality agreement when she came to work here, and it got her out of the room. And what's worse, her thinking you hired a prostitute who looks like your dead brother or her thinking I faked my own death and going to the press?"

Peter grimaced. The problem was, Nathan had a point. The other problem was, he still had his hand on Peter's thigh. Peter looked down at it, Nathan's thumb tracing a line over his inseam. 

"So, your suit didn't shrink," Peter said. 

"My suit?"

"From the shower."

"I'm pretty sure my suit's not what's important here."

"You said we should talk," Peter said. "I'm talking."

"You know what I meant."

"I don't know that I do."

"Do I have to spell it out?"

"You might need to, yeah."

Nathan made a frustrated sound and he leaned forward, suddenly, and the next thing Peter knew, Nathan's mouth was pressed to his and Nathan was pushing him back against the back of the couch and Nathan was moving, planting one knee either side of Peter's hips and straddling his thighs. Nathan kissed him, one hand in his hair and the other pressing down over the zipper of his jeans, and all Peter could do was kiss him back, squeezing Nathan's thighs over his tailored pants, running his hands underneath his jacket. It was stupid and he knew it, and even then he knew he should've stopped, _they_ should've stopped, like they'd always stopped before. Peter had always known the way he thought about Nathan was wrong, even before he realized none of the other brothers he knew looked at each other the way they did. He'd always known he shouldn't've been so damn thrilled every time they touched the way they did, too casual, too close, more like lovers than brothers. He'd always known he shouldn't've been jealous of Heidi. 

Nathan pulled back, cupping Peter's jaw in his hands. His face was flushed. He smiled almost sheepishly, and oh God, Peter could see the way Nathan's cock was straining against his slacks just like Peter's was in his jeans. From _kissing_. It was such a goddamn joke. 

"Maybe we shouldn't be doing this," Nathan said, though he leaned in by Peter's ear to say it so he really couldn't take a word he said all that seriously. 

"Stand up," Peter replied. 

"Pete, I--"

"Stand up," he said again, so Nathan did. And once he had, Peter shuffled forward and screw it, really, _screw it_ , it was just such complete fucking bullshit, so he unbuckled Nathan's belt and he dragged down his pants and caught his underwear with it and Jesus, _Jesus_ , Nathan's cock sprung out like a damn Jack-in-the-Box and Peter laughed as he wrapped one hand around it. He laughed because it was all so fucking absurd and he leaned in and he lapped at the tip. He sealed his lips around the head and he sucked and swirled his tongue and he took him deeper and Nathan groaned, his fingers sliding into Peter's hair. He sucked him, one hand stroking the base of his cock, holding it still for his mouth to work at, and the other hand gripped tight at his thigh like that could stop him vanishing the way he always did. 

It didn't stop him. Nathan hadn't even come before he was gone again, the way he always was. 

\---

He didn't see him again for three months. Three whole months and a couple of days, wondering when he'd be back, _if_ he'd be back, if he even wanted him to. Three months half-expecting to look up and see him across the room at dinner, in his bedroom, in the shower. Three months remembering how he'd tasted and the sounds he'd made and the flush on his cheeks and his fingers in his hair. He'd wanted it for years, even when he'd told himself he didn't want it at all. He'd pretended he was thinking about someone else, anyone else, but it'd always been Nathan he'd wanted, with him and on him and in him, fucking pathetic as that felt. It had always been Nathan.

But that wasn't the only thing in Peter's head those three months. There was also the fact that Sally had seen him. Whatever else Nathan was, he was _real_. He wasn't hallucinating. It would've almost been easier if he had. 

He talked to everyone he could think of and everyone he could find and no one had ever heard of an ability to bring the dead back to life, at least not outside of books. He looked into it, ghosts and spirits and near-death experiences, rituals, resurrection, _everything_ , took some time off work and lived steeped in the damn stuff, and he found nothing. Honestly, all these years later, he likes to think he's had the good sense to stop looking for the answer but he never really has. But the fact is, he couldn't explain it. 

Three months, and he was starting to think maybe that was it, maybe it was over, maybe Nathan was gone for good and he was never coming back. He thought back over all the times he'd seen him, asked himself what they had in common, and there was nothing. He hadn't even worn the same damn deodorant or been in the same place or said the same thing. There was _nothing_. There was nothing to repeat to make him come back. He figured maybe what they'd done had pissed off some kind of a judgemental deity and now Nathan was just gone. He wasn't totally sure how he was meant to live with himself if that was true. He wasn't totally sure how he was meant to live with himself anyway, considering. 

The thing was, he was pretty sure he should've told Heidi. He was pretty sure she was the one Nathan was meant to be with, her and the kids in the house just down the block from their mom's apartment, and to hell with how it'd hurt when he was gone again because at least they'd get to see him again. Peter was pretty sure Nathan should've been with Heidi. Except he wasn't. 

Three months and then there Nathan was, wrapping his arms around Peter from behind him as he combed his hair in the bathroom mirror. Just like that, he was back. 

"I thought I was never coming back," Nathan said, mumbling it into Peter's shower-damp hair, his eyes closed. He could see him in the mirror. "I'm sorry, Pete, I--"

Peter turned abruptly; Nathan stepped back. "Nathan, why'd you ask me not to tell Heidi?" he asked. 

Nathan frowned. "You don't think she'd ask questions?" 

" _I_ asked questions. I just...don't you think she'd want to see you?"

"You seriously think I'd get over there in time?"

"You can't just appear there instead?"

Nathan smiled, a kind of scrunched-up, rueful thing that looked totally out of place on him. "You don't think they're better off moving on without me stopping by for forty seconds every couple of months?" he said. "Besides, I don't get to choose. The only place I go is where you are and Heidi and the kids will learn to get along without me. Do you really think _you_ will?"

"You son of a bitch," Peter said, but somehow he wound up taking two handfuls of Nathan's jacket lapels. He hauled him closer. "You think you came back for me."

"Yeah," Nathan said. He raised his hands. He set them at Peter's bare shoulders and inched closer; Peter stepped back against the counter. "I think I came back for you. And so do you."

Peter would've liked to've said he didn't think that; the problem with that was that standing there, Nathan's thumbs tracing his collarbones, he wasn't sure Nathan wasn't right. Nearly three years on, the people Nathan had left behind were all doing better, they were doing _okay_ even if they weren't doing _well_. All of them except for him, though he wasn't sure if he was so fucked up because Nathan had died or because he'd come back, but there it was, either way. He winced. Nathan nodded. He stepped back. 

"Take off the towel, Peter," Nathan said, and Peter looked down at it tucked around his waist, He'd lived alone for years by then so he wasn't totally sure why he even bothered to do it anymore except out of habit, but then there was Nathan, telling him to take it off, and that kinda felt like it meant something, like it was a new step, like he was being asked to make a choice and commit to it and not just jump to it in the heat of the moment. He looked at Nathan standing there, under the stark bathroom lights, in his goddamn suit and wingtips like a fucking congressman, watching him, waiting. He took off the towel. He tossed it aside and leaned back against the edge of the counter. He guessed that was a choice. 

Nathan smiled at him. Nathan looked at him, he looked at _all_ of him from head to toe and back again, and maybe it wasn't the first time Nathan had seen him naked but somehow it kinda felt like it. Then Nathan unbuttoned his jacket and he shrugged it off and for a second Peter almost thought he'd go try to find a hanger for it in the closet but he just tossed it on top of the hamper. He unknotted his tie and set it on his jacket, took out his cufflinks and leaned past Peter to put them on the counter, untied his shoes, unbuttoned his shirt. He did it slowly, deliberately, so slowly Peter started to wonder if he wouldn't just blink out and be gone again, but he kept going, piece by piece, shirt, undershirt, slacks, socks, jewellery, underwear, till he was just as naked as Peter was. And okay, so maybe it wasn't the first time he'd seen Nathan naked, but it kinda felt like it was, too. 

"I think we've probably spent about enough time hanging out in your bathroom," Nathan said, with a quirk of his brows, and he turned and walked away back into the bedroom. Peter watched him go for a second, watched the muscles in his back, heard his bare feet against the tiled floor, and then he followed, and Nathan stretched out on his bed, leaning up just slightly on his forearms to look at him. Peter joined him, wondering exactly what the fuck he thought he was doing, how he'd ever come to the decision that this was okay, but he straddled Nathan's thighs and paused like he had no idea what came next. Except then Nathan lay back and ran his hands over Peter's thighs, up to his hips. 

"Did you ever think about this, before?" Peter asked, and he set his jaw as he spread one hand out over Nathan's dick, half hard already. 

"You mean before I died?"

"Before you came back."

"Yes," Nathan replied. He rubbed the shallow crease of muscle where Peter's hips met his abdomen with his thumbs, almost absently. "Yeah, I thought about this before."

Peter wrapped his fingers around him. He gave him a slow stroke, squeezing at the tip, and Nathan shifted on the mattress. 

"A lot?" he asked. 

Nathan nodded tensely. "A lot," he replied. 

Peter leaned forward and caught his own cock in his hand right alongside Nathan's. 

"Yeah, me too," he said. 

It was good, Peter thought, watching the expression on Nathan's face change as he stroked them both together, but jeez, it wasn't nearly enough. He leaned down past Nathan to the drawer by the bed and pulled out a tube of lube and Nathan raised his brows and Peter shrugged as he passed it to him. Then he shifted over. He settled on his hands and knees, feeling kinda dumb and exposed and ridiculous with his cock hanging down hard and his ass in the air, but apparently Nathan got the message because he pulled himself up and moved around behind him like it wasn't ridiculous at all. He ran his hands over the back of Peter's thighs, over the curve of his ass, parted his cheeks and rubbed between them with the pad of one thumb. Peter shivered at the feel of that as much as at the temperature of the lube, and Nathan rubbed it between Peter's cheeks but he pushed up far enough to turn and grab his wrist. 

"Just do it," he said, his voice thick. "Before you're gone again." So Nathan did what he was told for once in his life. Peter took a slow, deep breath and Nathan pushed forward, Nathan pressed the tip of his cock between Peter's cheeks, Nathan pushed inside him, he opened him up with the length of his slicked-up cock and Peter dropped his head down lower, dropped onto his forearms and groaned into the pillows as Nathan pushed into him as deep as he could go. It was so spectacularly fucked up - there was no way it should've ever gotten that far but Peter shifted his knees wider and Nathan rocked his hips. Nathan moved in him and Peter squeezed his eyes shut. It was his brother. His dead big brother. _Nathan_. That should've made it horrifying but somehow it just made it better. 

Nathan moved again. He ran one hand down the length of Peter's spine then settled them both at his hips and he moved in him, slowly, but then Peter pushed back to meet his thrusts and Nathan must've figured okay, sure, he could do that, because his next thrust was harder and Peter braced himself to take it with one hand against the headboard. Nathan fucked him in long, deep thrusts, making the bed creak, making his cock ache, making their breath catch; he fucked him harder and Peter pushed up, up off his hands onto his knees, arched his back and turned his head just far enough and Nathan found his mouth and kissed him over his shoulder, hot and hard. One hand went down, over Peter's abdomen to wrap around his cock, and Peter squeezed his own hand over Nathan's, moved with him, showed him how he wanted it, tight and slow, a squeeze at the tip, till he was almost gasping in each breath he took, till his hips shifted almost of their own accord, till he was practically fucking himself on the length of his brother's cock. 

Peter came first, over Nathan's hand, but Nathan wasn't long after. Nathan came in him, pulsing with it, hips giving a couple of last erratic jerks as he bit off a groan that was almost the hottest part of the whole damn thing, hearing Nathan sound like that. And okay, maybe Peter should've felt dirty, maybe he should've felt wrong, but he didn't. Nathan pulled out of him, wiped himself off on a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand, and he grinned at him as they stretched out next to each other, and logically he _knew_ it was wrong, what they were doing, but he just couldn't _feel_ it. He's still not totally sure he wouldn't've felt better if he had. 

"I'm going to be _so_ late to work," Peter said, and Nathan just shifted in closer. He wrapped one arm around Peter's waist and he hitched one thigh up over his. 

"So be late to work," he said. "Better yet, play hooky. Stay home." 

Peter shifted. He rolled over on top of him, felt Nathan's thighs come up to cradle his hips against him, saw the way he raised his brows like _okay, sure, what now?_ But then he was gone again in the blink of an eye and Peter was left face-first to the pillow where Nathan had just been. 

He laughed into it. So much for playing hooky, he guessed. 

\---

The longest time Nathan's ever stayed is two full days. The longest he's ever been away is four months. As far as Peter can tell, there's really no rhyme or reason to it at all.

He was there on Peter's forty-first birthday. It was just the luck of the draw, Peter figures, not any kind of grand design, and besides, it wasn't like he could exactly join the party. He stayed locked up in Peter's room for the duration, even when Heidi and the kids were downstairs. Pete felt pretty shitty about it, like he always does, but he didn't breathe a word about him. He didn't even mention his name. 

And after, when all the guests were gone, Peter went upstairs to see if Nathan was still there. Judging by the fact he helped strip him out of his tux, he was pretty sure he was. Nathan himself was already naked. 

It's not always sex. Sometimes Nathan's not there for long enough and sometimes they just talk, and sometimes they cook or Peter's watching a movie so Nathan just sits down and joins in because it's not like he gets to take an afternoon and hit the movies. Sometimes Peter plays hooky and that's fine - sometimes he misses nursing but there's sometimes perks to being his own boss, too. 

"Y'know, I'm older than you ever were," Peter says, tonight, and Nathan shrugs, still in that same suit and tie as always. He hasn't changed a bit. He takes off his jacket and he wraps his arms around Peter's waist. 

"Then we know which of us will go gray first, I guess," he says, peering theatrically at the gray hairs that've been coming in for years at Peter's temples, and Peter winds Nathan's tie around his fist and brings him closer with it - they've discovered they can hack his clothes to pieces and they're still right as rain the next time he's there, so a little light crumpling won't hurt, and they go upstairs. Nathan's clothes get a little more crumpled. He stopped caring about that years ago.

And when they're done, when they're lying there face to face in Peter's bed, Peter's forty-one-year-old legs wrapped around Nathan's younger waist, Nathan's cock still in him, Peter frowns. 

"What do you think happens to you when I die?" he asks, and Nathan gives him a look like that's a really dumb question, or a morbid one, like he doesn't even want to think about that. He shifts his hips, still hard inside him though that won't last much longer, and Peter shivers. Nathan looks triumphant, but Peter's undeterred. 

"I'm serious," he says, and maybe he expects Nathan to say something flippant or just plain disappear, but he looks at him, like he's considering it. 

"I think then you come with me," he says. "And I think neither one of us ever has to leave." 

Peter smiles. He's looked for the answer for years now, everywhere he could think to look and then some, in religion and science and in other people's abilities because he's pretty sure that it was never his. He's looked for the answer and never found it, but he thinks what Nathan's said is as good a theory as any he's heard. 

Nathan kisses him. Maybe tonight will be one of those rare nights he gets to stay through, or maybe he'll be gone inside thirty second, but right now he kisses him. 

It's as good a theory as any he's heard, Peter thinks. And he likes it the best of all.


End file.
